The
Horror Trains: A Polish Woman Veteran's Memoir of World War II
by Wanda E. Pomykalski (1999), 362 pages.

This
is a book worth your time if you want to learn about the trials and
tribulations of a young Polish girl, who was captured by Soviet security men
while trying to escape from Poland to neutral Hungary in December 1939. The
reader may want to know that the story has a happy ending. Wanda Pomykalski
escaped from her horror trains just in time because of good luck and, no
doubt, because she was young, healthy, and determined. She has lived in
California with her family for many years but only now got around to compiling
her notes and, at the urging of her friends, was able to present her riveting
story in English.

This memoir
reads like a novel as its 32 short chapters cover many extraordinary events;
as one phase ends, a new one begins. It starts with Wanda spending her happy
summer months of 1939 in Warsaw, waiting to begin her medical studies.
Charming young men are squiring her in romantic cafes and sentimental music
fills the air.

Like a
bombshell this idyll ends abruptly on September 1. With her parents away in
western Poland, Wanda follows the familiar evacuation of Polish troops heading
east while the German bombers strike from the air. Then Soviet troops attack
from the east. She is caught at the border; she describes her tribulations
covering the period, which ends in August 1941. Most of them are endless
travels by the "horror trains" as a Soviet prisoner. She is accused
of spying ("anyone leaving our country is automatically considered a
spy") and is informed that after 5-10 years in prison she will be
"allowed" to work in a Soviet labor camp. She boards her first
cattle train in southern Poland (which was declared a part of the Soviet
Union) and is transported to Kiev and Odessa with many of her woman
companions. The horrible winter of 1940 is a nightmare for the prisoners. The
guards are often sadists and sanitary conditions appalling. The people are
constantly crying for water, bread, and spoons of abominable soup, their
nourishment. The bitter cold kills many. The most terrible aspect of this
ordeal is the contempt and hostility of the guards or interrogators towards
terrorized women who are being carried away to awful destinations. After
Odessa, the trains travel for weeks to Ufa, Omsk, and Tomsk, way past the Ural
mountains, towards the town of Tayga. This Godforsaken place is 2,000 miles
from Warsaw, the same as the distance between Washington,D.C. and California.

It is almost as
if Cod rescues these people. Our writer learns the news of the German invasion
of Russia while reading a discarded newspaper in the latrine! It also contains
information that Stalin agreed to free imprisoned Poles and allowed the
formation of a Polish Army. Suddenly there is some hope and travel is
permitted to Samara (Kuybyshev), where Gen.Anders is assembling his
prospective troops, along with the liberated civilians, some of whom can
barely walk. Many of them lack shoes and cover their feet with bits of
discarded automobile tires.The
arrival in Italy brings an uplifting ending to Wanda's tortuous saga.

In closing it is well to recall that similar tales were never recorded by
thousands who did not survive. They were shipped in hundreds of horror trains
to Siberia and the Arctic regions not only from Poland but also from the
Baltic countries during World War II. Others met the same fate even after the
1944 at the hands the NKVD. For these multitudes there was no happy outcome.